Notes: Found in some of the more disturbed soil in the area. There is a mossy, sparsely wooded patch bordering the beach just as the spit begins and parking lot ends. The place always has a smattering of Russula, Cortinarius, Agaricus, a couple boletes on occassion, with plenty of evidence of human intervention in the immediate area. Footprints, discarded and demolished mushrooms, and (unfortunately) litter abound. Two troops of Agaricus always seem to survive the upheaval: one stand of Agaricus subrutilescens and another of this one.

Despite the intense smell of amaretto/maraschino cherries, most evident in the stalk when split (more resembling anise or almonds when first picked), we were not able to positively ID this find. All potential matches in MD were ruled out for one reason or another. Notice the abruptly bulbous base as well. That star-like pattern of the breaking veil was even more spectacular in the larger fruit body when it was first discovered. Pictures of it will be arriving shortly.

Comments

the strong almondy odor in combination with that augustus-esque cap coloration AND the bulb makes it likely. I finally got to see several smithii this past season and it was the bulb that helped make the ID, in combination with the other features.

has just been collected again at this year’s OMS Fall Foray. Desjardin has tentatively ID’ed it as A. smithii, which looks to be a decent match by photo comparison in all respects except for the pattern of veil rupture. All of this year’s star collections are incoming with microscopy to follow.

Since finding another 8 or so of these, some occurring in different parts of the park than the aforementioned one, I’ve come to discover that the pattern created by the veil breaking occurs in most fruit bodies. It is not an aberrant quality of the species but a defining one.